What causes loss of router signal?

Hello Wilder friends,
I have been wanting to ask this question for some time and thought now would be a good time since, it has never been this difficult to reestablish my wireless connection.

Usually a reboot of my PC will establish a wireless connection...but not this evening. The hard wired PC was fine but my wireless family machine was totally off line unable to connect. I finally had to reboot the router by cutting power and restarting by reconnecting power to the router. It is a otherwise reliable router most of the time.

My question is what causes this? Is it the ISP or the router just loses the signal?
Again usually a PC reboot will do it this evening it took a router reboot. I can usually use the right clink and repair to get it done too. Not this time.

This Netgear router is approx. 30 feet away but there is a inside wall between. All my stuff runs 24/7.

Well I am up now in fact the balloon just came up and said my signal is excellent... go figure.

 

Re: What causes lose of router signal?

Just so I can get a correct picture in my own mind. Are you losing the "signal" or just the ability to surf? When it happens, are you at least able to ping or access the router? Many things can cause signal loss. Some of them outside of your control. Police speed radar, an automatic garage door opener, micro-wave oven to name a few. Does it happen around the same time every day? One thing you can do is check if you have the latest firmware installed in the router. Not familiar with Netgear but you should be able to check the fiemware version from the UI of the router then find the newest version, if any, on their website.

 

Re: What causes lose of router signal?

Indeed, and three of the most frequent causes of poor wireless quality and connectivity are interference from other electrical items in the vicinity, cordless DECT phones and mobile phones. All are nothing to do with the router or the PC's wireless adaptor, but can have a devastating effect on the usability of the wireless connection.

There may even be clues in the router's log as to what happens when the ability to surf vanishes, if that is the main symptom.

 

Re: What causes lose of router signal?

Ive seem some wireless equipped PC/laptops that have problems reconnecting when they loose signal, at a guess I would say its poor drivers, or 2nd guess the card itself, as my machine was next to one problem machine when I saw it happen, both were running xp sp2 at the same time and mine didnt glitch...

One easy test to check if its the router or isp is to connect to the remote admin screen of your router, usually something like 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.2.1
If you can connect to your router your wireless is working fine.

 

Re: What causes lose of router signal?

Are you able to scan for wireless access points and see if there are other routers close by?
If so, it could be that you need to change your router channel, to decrease interference.



Heat of the router could be another problem, I noticed loss of connection last summer. Had to reset the router often.
It helps if you attach an external antenna to your wireless card. I got a $10 deal a couple weeks ago. My signal went up from low to very good.

If your wired computer is able to browse at the same time, then you must assume that it's not your ISP that causes the problem.

Also: instead of rebooting the computer, you can reconnect with a repair: right click on the network icon and select repair.

 

Re: What causes lose of router signal?

Netgear=192.168.0.1

Have the aerial as high as possible.
Check which channel the router and any phones (or other wireless) are on.
Always make a service and firewall rule (port forward) if using p2p - netgear will balk and loose connections if not after awhile.
reboot PC, router. - pull the power supply and wait 30 seconds before reapplying.
Use netgear maintenance - status, attached devices, diagnostic, (ping, reboot, routing, dns,) upgrade-if recommended.

 

Re: What causes lose of router signal?

Was anyone talking on a phone perhaps? (most wireless handsets use the same wireless frequency as your router, so it may interfere)

At my home, whenever someone picks up a phone, the wireless connection gets killed ( which is why I ran cat5 cable to my pc )

Cheers,

Alphalutra1

 

Thanks to all for your replies and insight.

Meriadoc post last paragraph cures it everytime. I was just curious and thought I could maybe solve the issue (as in less frequent, not that it is all that frequent). Anyway, yes I live in a one story building and celphone recharging station is within 6 feet, one end of a large desk router is at the other. T.V. is also within 5 feet on the other side close. Height is about 3.5 feet off ground. It is rather cool as in tempature. comfortable for me so that would be good. Router firm ware updates maybe that could also be of help. Most other routers are to far away to connect. Their presents is noted as in the snapshot in this thread.

I am truely amazed at the routers that are labeled unsecure.

Yes sometimes you can repair connection using repair but not always you most reboot the router which is one of the reasons I posted. Why would a reboot of the PC work sometimes and others you must reboot router, why would sometimes the repair work and other times no? The last time this happened I mean it just flat out could not find my "prefered router" it (it as in the windows software) did ask me to chose another from the list of course I did not want to.

One last thing I would add which was when the ISP was down I was like the first to report and Tech support pulled my router up (by account) somehow and said I had an up time of like 96 days. He was like in shock said that was really good. Of course that was not really the wireless, that was just showing my router was taking the signal from the ISP.

Thanks again.

EDIT: I don't think anyone was talking on the phone this usually happens when I am not around. I come home and get on and there is the issue. Again not all that often I was just curious. Believe it or not I would rather keep a tight range on my router as it helps to prevent others from attempting to piggyback on me. Even if I am secure it is best to be out of range of street or roving neighbor. When my wireless is working it is most of the time at excellent sometimes listed good.